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Talk:Hitler's War
Oh good, another July book. Turtle Fan 02:56, 28 November 2008 (UTC) :What's wrong with that? TR 05:19, 28 November 2008 (UTC) ::Nothing. I'd be disappointed if there weren't another straight(ish) AH coming out in July. There has been for as long as I've been reading HT and I would definitely feel the lack. With MwIH being a standalone I was afraid we'd be living year-to-year to see if we were getting anything. Turtle Fan 23:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC) :::Sorry, I read your post as sarcastic for some reason or other. TR 23:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC) ::::Eh, no harm done. Turtle Fan 00:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC) Cover at Del Rey Here http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780345491824. Of course, those geniuses at Del Rey have their "enlarge picture" function set so that the larger picture opens in a new window for literally 5 seconds before automatically closing. I opened it up in another window, and when it asked me I wanted to close, I said no, and am now looking at it.... Quoth the cover copy--"If Neville Chamberlain hadn't appeased the Nazis, would the Allies still have won World War II?" I feel somewhat nervous now. The only thing the keeps from feeling flat out disappointed is the knowledge that Del Rey's cover copy has been barely relevant to the actual contents of the text. TR 23:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC) :Well that's a stupid question. They're talking about appeasement as though it were an integral part of our strategy instead of an all-time great diplomatic blunder that jeopardized the cause right off the bat. Might as well ask "Could Babe Ruth still have hit the called-shot home run if he hadn't already taken two called strikes?" :The cover sucks artistically, too. What the hell has a Leatherman knife got to do with anything? Well, that's Del Rey for you, I guess. I wouldn't worry about it. :Incidentally, other Del Rey books I've seen tend to have decent covers. Maybe they really are feuding with HT, and rehearse their hostility by giving him deliberately bad dust jackets. Turtle Fan 03:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC) ::That's a Leatherman knife? Jelay14 04:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC) I didn't bother enlarging the picture. Just took a glance and came back here. Turtle Fan 19:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC) :::I thought it was an SS dagger. (Based on what might be an erroneous belief that the SS carried daggers as part of their uniform.) TR 15:43, 16 January 2009 (UTC) ::::I figured it was the SS dagger that one got at the midnight torch-lit ceremony when officially made a member. That or a Hitlerjugend dagger. Jelay14 23:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC) :::::It has the symbol of the SS on it. :::::That having been said, TF's point still somewhat valid--unless the SS does something big and dramatic, having that particular blade in the Sudetenland is kind of odd. TR 23:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC) :^''That'' being said, I find it odd that I had experienced the same problem as TR on Del Rey's site for years - until yesterday, when I clicked on it and the pop-up stayed up! Jelay14 00:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC) ::Say what? Mother fucker. TR 02:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC) Bonardo Someone suggested, probably jokingly, that this could be the set-up series to In the presence of Mine enemies. Jelay14 21:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC) :I find that somewhat hard to imagine. It's conceivable, if Hitler beat the shit out of Britain and France for trying to stop him from retaking territory that had been Germany's before WWI, that US public opinion will be too heavily in favor of "Serves them right for trying to enforce such an unfair treaty" for the anti-Nazi contingent of the government to do anything; but unlikely. If Hitler is content to stay in areas that were his before Versailles, it could happen, but as soon as he moves into Allied countries that were never German and makes it clear he's there to stay, he becomes an enemy. And he'd need to do the latter, without offending the US, to get into the same timeline as a certain novel that was written by turning Lenin's Tomb into a mad lib. Turtle Fan 23:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC) ::It was suggested by this one idiot on AH.com. On that basis alone I can't really take it seriously. Jelay14 00:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC) :::Yeah, some guy over at the videssos groups is having anxiety attacks over it. :::And, no, while HT was vague about the course of World War II in ItPoME, he made it pretty clear that the change really was that the US managed to stay neutral and not piss off Japan. The mechanics of this change were unclear, but that's the basic POD. TR 03:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC) ::::Does this guy happen to have the name "Umbric Man"? Jelay14 03:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC) :::::No, he goes by Martin Helsdon. TR 03:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Quote Just noticed this gem on the book's page, from Del Rey: "Alternate history master Harry Turtledove sets his sights on one of the most fascinating periods in history—World War II." Ooh, wow. How very exciting. Finally--a WWII AH by Turtledove! He's never done one before, you know. Turtle Fan 23:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC) :I predict more WWII AH as US interest in this little-explored era rises in the next few years. Jelay14 00:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC) ::In fairness, HT's never quite retold the war from beginning to end. He did add aliens to it, and then he's changed it and jumped ahead a few decades. :::Don't forget DoI. That didn't change things from the real beginning, but it did change things from what was the beginning as far as most of its target audience was concerned. Turtle Fan 05:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC) ::Other than that, yeah, it's a stupid quote. I anticipate HT setting his sights on the American Civil War shortly. TR 03:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC) The other half of that quote is this: "In gripping detail, he imagines how the war in Europe would have ended had British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain refused to allow Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland." I believe this gives a hint or two about the plot. We're looking at how the war ended? Not how it began, even though the POD is set right at the outset? This tells me that, whatever else we may be in for, we're looking at a very quick resolution to the Sudetenland crisis: Either Hitler backing down, or the Allies dealing him a quick and decisive defeat. The end to this particular conflict follows hard on the heels of its beginning, with scarcely any middle. Where we go from there is a more open question, especially if this is going to introduce a series rather than stand alone. Another explanation, and a much much less satisfying one, is that we will be joining an ATL already in progress, as we did in MwIH, as we would have in HFR but for the two scenes up front. It would have to be more like the latter; I had a hard enough time buying that a 1942 POD has no effect on 1943 or 1944 last year, but at least it was a relatively minor change. Something like Chamberlain digging in his heels on the Sudetenland? No way in hell would that not cause immediate drastic changes. So we might get stuck with "We've been fighting a war you wouldn't recognize and aren't familiar with, and now we're going to describe how it ends, even though you don't know what's brought us to this point unless we very clumsily drop incomplete clues in retrospect." I certainly hope not. Turtle Fan 04:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC) :The large page count leads me to believe that we will be seeing the event from beginning to end. TR 15:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC) ::Then where's the set-up for sequels? Subsequent wars? :::Possibly. Czechoslovakia also had an agreement with the USSR, and Stalin at least suggested he'd jump Hitler if Britain and France did. Whether or not he will, of course, we'll see, but it could be the case that Germany finds itself in the vise with France and Britain in the west and Czechoslovakia and the USSR in the east. After about a year or so of fighting (most HT war books cover about a year), Hitler is defeated, overthrown, but now Stalin is in Czechoslovakia, and Poland shares a border. TR 21:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC) :::Something to that. Move the Cold War up in time somewhat? Turtle Fan 00:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC) ::Any chance the quick resolution to the Sudetenland Crisis of which I spoke is, going in the other direction, a quick Nazi win? The Nazis blitz the Sudetenland, kick the French in the nuts before they're ready (taking the Rhineland and Alsace-Lorraine while they're at it) and by the time the British have an expeditionary force on continental Europe, the Germans are ready to throw them back into the sea? Chamberlain again underestimates Hitler, but this time he underestimates the latter's war-preparedness rather than his reasonableness. That could also explain why we have promotional material that hints at how not appeasing Hitler could have been for the worse. :::According to what Silver has communicated on the videssos board, HT may have found that quote more amusing than accurate. TR 21:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC) ::::Yeah? Geez, I can't remember the last time I read the Videssos board. I remember I was getting so many spam messages from all sorts of different Yahoo! groups that I just told my spam filter not to let any through. It was a while before I even noticed that I wasn't getting Videssos digests any more and putting two and two together, and then I decided that those messages were worth neither fiddling with my settings nor making special trips to Yahoo!. So now I do without. Turtle Fan 00:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC) ::So at the end of the book, World War II is over because the Nazis are in an even stronger position in western Europe than they were after the Battle of France, they're not at loggerheads with the USSR, and the British and French are shocked by the quickness and disastrousness of their defeat. All those Westerners who were prone to existential despair and saw the inevitable demise of their society right around the corner declare that all is lost and force their elected governments to sue for peace, perhaps with territorial boundaries reset to 1914 as the main sticking point, or even more if the Germans decide they're entitled to a little expansion for their troubles. That could set us up for conflicts with other great powers a little while later which the other books could cover. Turtle Fan 20:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC) :::Or as I suggested above, Stalin is now in a better position, and as I have tenatively suggested, vol. 2 is Stalin's War? ::::Yes, that too would be fun. Then we need a third European dictator to bring the series to a conclusion. Unfortunately, his name just won't have the same resonance that Hitler's War and Stalin's War do. Tito's War? Franco's War? Oliviera's War? Mussolini's War? Ulbricht's War? All of these would seem to be a bit of a let down. Turtle Fan 00:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC) :::One other thing to remember is that Spain is going to be situated differently. HT evidentally said to himself "How to I get Chamberlain to stand up to Hitler?" and reached back into the Spanish Civil War. That leads me to believe that Spain is some sort of X-factor, maybe giving Germany that added support to win a war, or maybe just boosting Hitler's false confidence and staving off defeat. ::::My thought, and of course it's just a wild guess, was that the Republicans win the Spanish Civil War, probably because that general whom HT's letting survive longer fucks something up. Then Germany fought a proxy war against other great powers and lost, as you'd expect a nation still reeling from a disastrous military defeat should. So the daunting specter of facing a fully rearmed German nation-state, even stronger than it had been in 1914, now with the support of the Russian, American, and dozens of other governments that chipped in to defeat the Kaiserreich anything but assured, the British in particular would be much more willing to take strong, potentially deal-beaking stands. Turtle Fan 00:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC) Series Name :::And one little final note that probably means nothing but interests me: this series does not have an overall title. This volume is Hitler's War period, not Hitler's War:Year One or World War II:Hitler's War. It's not unheard of for HT to do this at other publishers, but his DelRey series were all titled this way. TR 21:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC) ::::Wasn't the Time of Troubles set of four books strung together into that series as an afterthought? At any rate, they're not called "Time of Troubles: Insert Title Here." ::::Otherwise, while HT's Del Rey series books do tend to bear series names, they're not always classified initially the way they are at the end. Look on the "By This Author" pages of any old books you happen to have lying around. You'll see things like HFR listed under the Great War trilogy/series and Col: SC as a Worldwar book. ::::Speaking of odd tricks with series names, I always assumed the book by Tsouras for which I waited all year last year and finally read around Thanksgiving was titled "Britannia's Fist." Actually it seems to have been titled "From Civil War to World War," a tiny little blurb on the dust jacket which I thought was either a subtitle or some sort of description. The next book will, I take it, be "Britannia's Fist" with some other title that's easy to overlook. ::::Hmm, I should see if there's any info on Book 2 to be found yet. I enjoyed the first one rather more than I thought I would and am surprisingly excited to read the sequel, now that I think of it. Turtle Fan 00:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC) On-line review http://www.alternative-worlds.com/2009/06/17/hitler%e2%80%99s-war-harry-turtledove/ I never find Harriet Klausner's reviews that helpful, but do what you will. Still have no idea why the Spanish Civil War matters, but at least we know why Munich fails-the assassination of Henlein. TR 22:01, 27 June 2009 (UTC) :You know, based on that I'm starting to think this may be a double-POD novel: The first difference is that Spanish general whose name escapes me living, thus keeping the Spanish Civil War going, for the purposes of giving us a secondary front; but the real PoD is Heinlein--which seems like an awkward PoD itself. But even its awkwardness plus the cardinal sin of a double-PoD series leaves me feeling relieved at this specter--It's still better than trying to hook a Spanish general's survival up to a British leader's folly in a direct causality. ::Perhaps. Or not. Klausner doesn't even address Sanjurjo's survival (which, based on HT practice, is probably detailed in the prologue), so what role it plays is still unclear. Not seeing how Sanjurjo's survival prompts Henlein's assassination, as there is a gap of two years between the events. TR 20:42, 28 June 2009 (UTC) :::Sanjurjo kills Henlein! :::My basis for suggesting two PODs is that I can't come up with a logical connection between the two, which is admittedly bullshit, and that the review speaks of Henlein's death as the reason Chamberlain changes his mind, which may or may not signify something. I can tell this reviewer is nothing special. :::Based on all the sneak peeks I've seen, I'm expecting a weak story with strong characters. Turtle Fan 03:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC) :Thanks by the way for the reminder that I need to preorder this book, though I'm really anything but excited about reading it. Far more excited about LA and even TGS, if only because we'll finally find out what the damned shrine is. Turtle Fan 14:42, 28 June 2009 (UTC) 2nd review http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6667261.html Actually, the more reserved response makes me feel a little better. Can't say why, but it does. Also, Mongolian border issues are intriguing. TR 14:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC) :Mongolia, you say? Hmm. Sounds like the Russians may get involved in the Pacific--perhaps even at a time when the Americans are not. :Good thing Nelg made that Russo-Japanese Border War article, we may end up needing it when that one's done. :As for his disparagement of plotting and characterization, I was expecting the former but had high hopes for the latter. :Of course, there's no guarantee I'll agree with any given review, especially one that's so shy about sharing details. Turtle Fan 04:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC) Ah.com reader A fellow at AH.com has read a preview copy, and says that the course of the war does not follow OTL. I'm a little more excited again. I've asked him just how Sanjurjo plays into it. I'll let you know when there is a response. TR 16:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC) :Intriguing. Thank you. The Sanjurjo POD really has made no sense to me so I'm eager to have that explained. I really don't like reading AH without some idea of how the POD is going to bring about the changes advertised. Turtle Fan 02:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC) ::Ok, it sounds like your double POD idea is about correct. Or very tiny butterflies are at work. :::Me: "So, does this fighting in Spain make the Allies think twice at Munich? :::Number Three:"I think it drags out the war. Franco never gets control. The root causes aren't really discussed. ::::So it doesn't have much to do with anything? Turtle Fan 07:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC) :::Spoiler: :::When Chamberlain is planning to yield to the Nazi demands in Czechoslovakia, an assasination that seems too well timed makes Chamberlain reconsider. Germany invades and France and England declare war. Thus the war starts early before the major build-ups are complete. I also think that the loss of some factories in Czechoslovakia are important." (note-I line edited). ::::Well that's nothing new, not for us. Turtle Fan 07:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC) ::Regarding POVs: ::: Number Three: "I have to check, and I will tonight, but I believe there is a one off Hitler POV. Other than that it is minor character POV's. There are three Americans. One is a Jewish fighter in Spain. a female trapped by the start of the war, and one a marine stationed in Peking. There is a Japanese foot soldier. One is the commander of a german u-boat. There is a panzer commander and 2 foot soldiers on the western front. One is a member of the BEF and another is French. There is also a Czech soldier. There are two pilot POV's; one is Russian and the other a German Stuka pilot. There is also a German Jew perspective." ::::Good Lord that sounds busy. I hope they're not all full-timers. ::::By the way, if they're POVs, how are they minor characters? I'm certainly hoping a few are one-and-done POVs like, say, the Dora crewman, so they could be minor characters; but if they're fulltimers, and I know at least some of them are, they're the most important people in the book. Turtle Fan 07:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC) :::::Maybe the guy meant they wee minor as in not as important as Hitler or other big-wigs. Jelay14 21:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC) :::::::Important to the book, but not to the story? Well I guess that could be. He might also mean they're anything but memorable, like Tealdo and Trasone (surprised I got both names out on the first try). Turtle Fan 04:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC) ::::::I suspect he meant fictional, since I asked him about historical POVs. TR 00:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC) :::::::Ah, I miss the days when he would fill his books with historical POVs. Though thinking back on it, it never has been all that common, at least not among novels. The only all-historical POV novels I can think of are RB, GotS and HFR. The Worldwar series contained a few historical POVs, but not many. Anielewicz and Molotov are the only ones who jump to mind right away. Turtle Fan 04:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC) ::So there we go. TR 21:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC) Poland Well, my prediction of a German-Polish alliance appears to be borne out, if our colleagues at AH.com are correct. "Actually in the book Poland is more afraid of the Soviet Union so it declares war on the side of Germany." Naturally, this caused consternation for at least one person. TR 00:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC) :Interesting. I'm glad HT is going that root--It should make the story stronger and more engaging. ::I'd forgotten that Poland also took a piece of Czechoslovakia in OTL. I imagine something similar in this work could happen in HW and add more wrinkles. If this were to happen, Poland's position poltiically would be rather similar to the USSR OTL--ally of Germany out of convenience for now, target of Germany later. TR 17:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC) :In HT's books the Poles usually prefer the Germans to the Russians. Atvar reflected that Bor-Komorowski would be willing to defend the Race's hold on Poland against either the Nazis or the Reds but would prefer to fight the Reds, while for Anielewicz the exact opposite was true. In TL-191 Polish opinion was split but the Germans did seem to enjoy the advantage there. :And most Polish nationalists I know today (a surprisingly large group) resent the Russians more. Of course, the Russian occupation was much longer than the German, and recent enough that you don't need to be elderly to remember it. That helps. ::My grandmother, born in Buffalo, NY, is one such person. Indifferent the Germans, but will routinely use a Polish word for "Devil" to describe Russians. Cossacks especially. TR 17:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC) :::I've encountered the same. You know, Polish nationalism is mightily high for twenty-first century Europe. Even among persons of Polish extraction who live elsewhere. Then again, they've only enjoyed uncontested nationhood for about two decades, so they're still understandably giddy about it. Turtle Fan 05:27, 15 July 2009 (UTC) :I'm very eager to learn how this affects the status of Polish Jews. Turtle Fan 06:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC) ::I don't see Germany in the position to enforce its will over its allies as it did in OTL, at least not while the odds are even. Anti-Semetism in Poland was pretty fevered 1935-1937, and expulsion was being considered. It seems to me that actively persecuting able bodied soldiers just because they are Jews would be hideously stupid on Poland's part, especially when its at war with its hereditary, but racism does promote behavior that is self-defeating in the long term. TR 17:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC) :::Depending on the circumstances that bring Poland into the war on Germany's side, it could be seen as Poland helping out Germany. If so it's very likely that the loyalty of Jewish able-bodied soldiers would be suspect. So too if Germany goes on the offensive and bring the Einsatzgruppen with them, and likelier still if Polish anti-Semites decide these Einsatzers have stumbled on a very good idea. Turtle Fan 06:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC) It's Out The post office or FedEx or whoever delivered it to my door this morning, according to online tracking. I'll read it when I get home next week. You know, I'm struck by how little excitement goes along with this, compared to the release of a TL-191 book. Those days were events. At least, I always made them so. Turtle Fan 04:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC) :My copy is on its way. TR 05:10, 7 August 2009 (UTC) Series now has a title Or so the Del Rey site claims. I guess we still have time to change categories with minimum effort. We could change The Gap categories while we're at it. TR 16:39, October 16, 2009 (UTC) :Is that maybe just the title of the (rather oversold) review? (I like how after "Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell his story" the writer leads off with "American marines in Japanese-occupied China." He didn't use them to tell shit!) I got the feeling it might be, and I hope it is. I kind of hate "The War That Came Early" as a series title. Turtle Fan 19:14, October 16, 2009 (UTC) ::No, it's the title of the book. That review is the same cover copy found on the HC. Plus, the HC is simply listed as "Hitler's War". ::"The War That Came Early" is definitely of the same caliber as "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down" (aka Speed), but I fear for the moment that it is the official title of the series. TR 19:48, October 16, 2009 (UTC) :::Wait, so "The War That Came Early" was just some sort of hook for the blurb? Well that's a relief. It reminded me of A Rainbow of Blood, though as bad a title as that is, at least that's just the name of one installment, not of the series--which doesn't seem to rate its own name, come to think of it. Turtle Fan 23:13, October 16, 2009 (UTC) ::::No, it's the name of the series. TR 00:23, October 17, 2009 (UTC) :::::Well that's a shame. Hmm--Maybe there's still time for Del Rey to realize its mistake and reverse itself. Turtle Fan 00:42, October 17, 2009 (UTC) ::::::I hope so. Hitler's War is a better series name. Hell "Czechoslovakian World War 2" is a better name. TR 00:59, October 17, 2009 (UTC) :::::::"The End of Appeasement" would be good. "Consequences," as in Hitler can't just bully the West into letting him do what he wants. I might even prefer "Czech's in the Mail," or "Czech's in the Male" in reference to the old joke. Or "The War That Came Early; or, Czech This Out!" Turtle Fan 03:46, October 17, 2009 (UTC) Re-reading I've re-read the first 100 pages or so, and with hindsight, HT does manage to give a better picture of the overall situation than I initially gave him credit for. Which isn't to say it couldn't be better--it can, and my frustration at the lack of higher-up govt and military officials stands, but he does manage to give us something to work with. The characters are still flat, too many are soldiers, and the remainder don't do enough interesting things. But it is more interesting the second time. TR 18:57, April 25, 2010 (UTC) :I never reread books--maybe once a decade or so, and of course to get that privilege they must be among the best books I've ever read. I could see myself rereading Foundation some day. Turtle Fan 21:37, April 25, 2010 (UTC) ::I probably wouldn't have bother if not for this place, and the fact that it is the first in a series. TR 22:08, April 25, 2010 (UTC) Conroy Mad Bobby Conroy's about to drop a book called ''Himmler's War.'' My guess is it's got the US, UK, France, and miscellaneous other Western Allies cutting a separate peace with Germany and rolling into the USSR. That is what Himmler tried to arrange at the end, after all. :The plot summary at Amazon doesn't explicitly say "Yes, they change sides", but it does say "The Allies are uncertain and wonder if they should change sides." TR 15:37, November 2, 2011 (UTC) Though the balance of power in this coalition would be very different, the idea of an AH novel about the West helping the Nazis fight Stalin sounds familiar. . . . Considering that in the past he's given us novels about Japanese occupation of Hawaii and British intervention in the ACW (though the latter's such an obvious way to do such an overused POD that it should be considered a common safe haven), it does make you wonder. Turtle Fan 04:02, November 2, 2011 (UTC) :He's also given us an "Allies go to war with the USSR because Stalin pulled a dick-move" story. However, as other authors have also engaged the Japan invasion of Hawaii and British intervention in ACW in the last couple of years, I'm inclined to look less at the authors and more at the publishers. TR 15:37, November 2, 2011 (UTC)